Vienna, 1902: A beautiful medium has been found shot dead, and Dr Max Liebermann, a young disciple of Sigmund Freud, is called upon to help his friend Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt investigate her death. The room containing the body has been locked from the inside, and a cryptic note suggests a malevolent supernatural power is at work. Using the new science of psychoanalysis, Liebermann probes the minds of the suspects in an attempt to unravel this bewildering crime.

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Publisher's Summary

Vienna, 1902: a beautiful medium has been found shot dead, and Dr Max Liebermann, a young disciple of Sigmund Freud, is called upon to help his friend Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt investigate her death. The room containing the body has been locked from the inside, and a cryptic note suggests a malevolent supernatural power is at work. Using the new science of psychoanalysis, Liebermann probes the minds of the suspects in an attempt to unravel this bewildering crime.

What made the experience of listening to Mortal Mischief the most enjoyable?

The setting, the city of Vienna at its best, made this an engaging story that was difficult to leave. One tends to forget how important and influential it was. I loved the policeman and the psychiatrist meeting for musical evenings. It made them both whole people with interests and lives of their own. I did worry about the policeman's wife seeing him with the actress. That never seemed to be resolved. But perhaps it will come up in the next book in the series, which is already on my wish list.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I enjoyed them all.

Which character – as performed by Richard Burnip – was your favorite?

Hard to say. Burnip did an excellent job. His accent was believable, and he managed to do credible women's voices without sounding like he was getting ready for transgender surgery. Always a plus.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I have no idea what a tag line is, so I have no answer for this.

Any additional comments?

This was a great story and a really interesting opening of what seems like it will be a very engaging series.

Mortal mischief was the first of three Frank Tallis books I listened to on Max Lieberman, psychiatrist who, solves mysteries in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century. The criminal mystery is not the main theme in the novel. The atmosphere of this interesting city at that particular time with it's bureaucracy and anti Semitism are much more important, and definitely not least the jewish doctor's engagement to a nice but quite shallow jewish girl and his beginning fascinatination — even infatuation — of a young gentile Engiish student of medicin.
For anybody with some knowledge of Vienna and interest in classical music (which the protagonist executes together with the real detective) will experience a great delight in this and the two following novels. The reading by Richard Burnip is congenial with the text: magnificent!

Peter Cassirer, Sweden

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